Let us see just how far, according to the annual reports of our own agents in the Philippines—those charged by us with governing them,—this piece of legislation gotten through by “special privilege” has depressed the Manila hemp industry, the chief source of wealth of the Islands. And before we even get to the main trouble, let us permit the Insular Government to “place on the screen,” as a preliminary “view,” a glance at what the instinct of self-preservation of American sugar and tobacco interests, fearing competition from “cheap Asiatic labor,” have deemed it necessary to do to the Philippine sugar and tobacco industries, through the Dingley tariff. The annual report of the Philippine Commission for 1904, before it gets to the subject of hemp, draws a most gloomy picture of how we killed the markets for sugar and tobacco the Islands had under Spain, and gave them none instead. They speak of “the languishing state of these industries” (p. 26), and describe a state of affairs that sounds more like Egypt under Pharaoh than anything else, including a cattle disease that carried off ninety per cent. of the beasts of burden of the country, and wholesale destruction of crops by locusts.[7] What they have to say of the annual tribute levied by the American Hemp Trust, through Congress, on the Manila hemp industry, should not be re-stated, but quoted. They say:[8]
We desire to call attention to the injustice effected upon the revenues of the islands by section 2 of the Act of Congress approved March 8, 1902, which provides that the Philippine Government shall refund all export duties imposed upon articles exported from the islands into and consumed in the United States. Under the provisions of this section there has been collected in the Philippine Islands, since its enactment down to the close of the fiscal year 1904, the sum of $1,060,460.20 United States currency, which is refundable. These refundable duties are principally upon hemp exportations to the United States, and are in effect a gift of that amount to the manufacturers of the United States who use hemp in their operations.
They add:
It is manifestly a discrimination in favor of our manufacturers as against those of foreign countries. No good reason is perceived why this bounty to American manufacturers should be extracted from the treasury of the Philippine Islands, and it is respectfully submitted that the law authorizing it should be repealed.
The annual report of the Philippine Commission for 1905, after the usual complaint about being made a political football by Benevolent Assimilation on the one side, and Louisiana and our sugar-beet States on the other, and the usual annual and true description of the consequent poverty, says concerning hemp:
We have several times in our reports called attention to the practical workings of that portion of the Act of Congress approved March 8, 1902, which provides for the refund of duties paid on articles exported from the Philippine Islands to the United States and consumed therein, and have as repeatedly recommended its repeal. It is a direct burden upon the people of the Philippine Islands, because it takes from the insular treasury export duties collected from the people and gives them to manufacturers of hemp products in the United States. These manufacturers were already prosperous before this bounty was given them and it seems hardly consistent with our expressions of purpose to build up and develop the Philippine Islands when we are thus enriching a few of our own people at their expense.[9]
By the end of the fiscal year 1905 (June 30), the American importers of Manila hemp—of whom the International Harvester Company and its allied interests are the most influential—had, under the operation of the rebate system based on the Act of 1902, milked the Philippine people to the tune of about $1,000,000. Says the Philippine Commission’s annual report for 1905, immediately after the passage last above quoted:
The amount of duties refunded under this act to manufacturers in the United States during the three years ending June 30, 1905, is $1,057,251.12. Many of the departments of the government are much hampered in their operations because of the lack of funds, notably the bureau of education, and were the sum thus taken available for educational purposes, to say nothing of any other, the government would be enabled to give instruction to thousands of Filipino children whom they are now unable to reach and who must remain steeped in ignorance because of the lack of funds to provide such instruction.
Said the Manila Chamber of Commerce to the Taft Congressional party in August, 1905: “The country is in a state of financial collapse.”[10]